Tomato
by Average Naruto
Summary: Time Travel. In Kushina's first day of class, she expected many things. Her strange classmate Uzumaki Naruto was not one of them.
1. Day 1: My Classmate

Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Kishimoto and Co. I own nothing. Absolutely nothing.

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**Chapter One**

My Classmate Uzumaki Naruto

...

A little girl with long red hair walked meekly behind a tall man in a Jounin vest. There was nothing stunningly beautiful about the girl. If anything she looked plain and ordinary. Her face was chubby, like she had eaten one too many lunches. Her build small and undefined, as if she hadn't trained a day in her life, and she wore simple clothing: a sleeveless half-cut kimono vest, with a mesh under t-shirt that crawled up to her elbows. This was matched by a pair of black shorts with matching black sandals.

'Calm down, they said it was going to be alright.' The girl looked around her anxiously, trying not to trip on anything. It was her first day of class. 'Just relax, don't over think, and don't make yourself look like a complete idiot.'

She had a habit of doing just that.

With that thought she promptly tripped over something on the ground and groaned when her large face hit something that smelled distinctly of dog droppings. Holding her breath she pulled her face out of the mud and looked up to see the laughing face of the Jounin who was leading her here.

Trying to get back some of her pride she promptly got up and checked herself for any droppings that might have marred her clothing. Finding none she sighed in relief and looked around to see if anyone saw her folly.

No one had, so she brightened up slightly and continued to follow the laughing Jounin who didn't comment on the stray piece of mud on the back of her red hair.

"You nervous?" The man turned around to say this, and stopped his laughter. "What am I saying? Of course you are."

The girl looked startled at the question, but sucked in her breath and glared at him slightly. "I am not." She clenched her fingers around her kimono to hide some of her anxiety. "It's them that should be nervous!"

"Right," the man answered. "Just be careful not to say anything…dumb."

That was exactly her worry but she wouldn't let the man know that. There was something about the man's personality that annoyed her. As if he didn't particularly care for this task he was honored with, like he had better things to do. True, he probably did, but he didn't have to be so obvious about it!

Or that was the thought of the red-headed girl who continued to follow him, gritting her teeth to stop trembling so much.

"Don't worry," he said, sighing. Noticing how uncomfortable the girl looked. "The kids here aren't bad. Heck, you might make a friend or two today if you play your cards right."

The girl continued to tremble. "I am not worried. I am just cold that's all."

The man looked at the girl's clothes. "Yeah, I would be too. You sure you couldn't have worn something that didn't show off your stomach…you're kind of young for that you know."

The girl looked affronted. "I am old enough to be a Ninja!"

"No, you are old enough to enroll in Ninja School." He shook his head and waited for the trembling girl to catch up. "You want me to make your introduction?"

"Of course not." Though a part of her was telling her that she should accept his offer. This was her chance to make friends in the first day. The best way to make friends was to look normal, look like all the other kids, and fit in. "I am not a coward."

The man shrugged. "Suit yourself, kid."

He continued to walk down the hall and the girl followed. The girl realized that this school was far larger than the school she previously went to and contained so many different classrooms. She noticed that there were groups younger than her in one room, and groups far older than her in another.

The system was a lot different from where she came from and she honestly became even more terrified at the prospect of not fitting in. Would they place her in a class where the kids were younger? She didn't like that idea. Didn't like that idea at all, but it wasn't like she had an option.

She would go wherever she was told to, and suck it up. She would persevere because she had a dream to fulfill, one might even say the biggest dream this village had ever encountered.

"Okay, we are here." The man stopped by a door to a classroom. "Well, what are you waiting for?"

The smirk was back on his face and the girl scowled, slowly followed him into the room. With her hands clasped together in front of her chest, and her head bowed down she entered the class and tried really hard not to trip on anything, again.

This class would never let her live it down if she did and she wasn't in the mood to show the boys her temper.

As she came to the middle of the front the class went silent and a few of the boys were pointing to her. Pointing to her face specifically. She knew that they were likely talking about how chubby her face was. All round and ugly, like a ball of yarn. Topped with her messy red hair, it was exactly that.

A big ugly ball of red string.

'Okay, breath in, breath out. Just like I practiced.' She relaxed slightly only for her cool to get lost when someone snorted in front of her. She looked up to see a boy with messy brown hair holding in his laughter at something his friend said.

She felt dread creek up from her centre when she realized that they were talking about her. 'No, not again…'

"Class, settle down." The Jounin pat a hand on her shoulder to calm her down, but she still had her shaking gaze on the floor. "We'll make the introductions soon enough for the start of the semester. What I want to do now is to introduce a new student in the class. She just moved to Konoha, so make her feel at home."

The class went even more silent and looked at her curiously. Some of the girls with disdain, some with curiosity, but none with jealousy. That was good. Though she felt somewhat affronted that none of them thought she was worthy of being envied, though she had to admit that she wasn't exactly an incredible prize.

"Go ahead, the class is ready." The man patted her on the back once and made her almost tumble when she stepped up to the front. "Good luck," she heard him whisper.

Now with all eyes on her she had no way to escape, she would face this head on. Her shaking lessened, her body started to come back in control and she found the use of her voice again. She looked up once and saw how alien these kids appeared and looked down again.

They were so different from her, their features, their hair color, their build. They even wore different clothes.

Slowly she looked back up to see that some of the faces looked annoyed.

They wanted her to get her introduction over with, so she had to hurry it up. "My name is..." She trailed off.

Oh god, she had forgotten her name. This was the first day of class and she couldn't even remember her name. Quickly she searched through her mind trying to find out what it started with and got a K.

"My name is Ku-Ku…" She looked harder and found some more letters. "Kushin-Kushina!" She got it!

Now she got back some of her confidence and looked up.

They still looked annoyed and some even started chuckling, especially a boy with blond hair that sat in the back of the class. She couldn't see him very well, but she had other things to worry about.

Like finding out the words to her last name.

It had a U in it, she just knew it! What was it called? What was her Clan name!

Then it hit her and she almost shouted the name while closing her eyes and breathing out the words that would seal her fate in the class for the rest of the year.

"My name is Uzumaki Kushina!" But that wasn't all. "I am going to be the first Female Hokage!"

…silence.

The previous chuckles in the class stopped, and a few of the boys looked stunned.

Then, like an avalanche, the entire class started bursting out in laughter as if they were one. The laughter started out harsh and got only harsher as they continued to look at the trembling girl who still had her eyes closed.

'Damn it! I messed up!' She just wanted to state her dream calmly, not look like a desperate idiot. 'Why did I just shout that?…Kushina, you've screwed up big time, baka!'

Before she could say anything to make her situation more ridiculous, one of the boys in the front of the class stood up and pointed his finger at her chubby face. He looked like every other boy in the class in Kushina's opinion, brawny and annoying looking and he proved that he was just that the next second with his remark.

"You! Hokage!" Some of his friends stood up with him, and a few of them started raving even worse, slamming their fist onto their desk. "Please, stop. I am dying over here."

He nudged one of his friends and the friend whispered something into his ear. He got a malicious grin.

"As if a tomato faced shrimp could ever be Kage."

'Tomato face. Tomato face. Tomato face.'

These words went through the girls mind while most of the class laughed. Not everyone was laughing, but most were and the red headed girl, Uzumaki Kushina, couldn't help but grind her teeth together as the full implications of what the boy said sunk in.

The boy had made fun of her weight, he had made fun of the fat on her cheeks. Something that she was very sensitive about.

Most people had the courtesy to make fun of her face behind her back, but this boy, this rude, horrible boy had the gall to tell the entire class what he thought about her chubby face for the whole world to hear.

He was purposely trying to make her feel bad, and it was working.

Uzumaki Kushina couldn't deny that she had a tomato shaped head, and she couldn't deny that her hair was that exact color. It was a dark crimson, the kind one would find in blood, or the shades of fruits, and it irked her that her hair, which could easily be called beautiful in certain circumstances, had been reduced to a mere novelty by a few simple words.

Her blue eyes lost all their meekness and she glared at the boy who continued to ignore the frantic outcry of the Chunin instructor who was telling everyone in the class to settle down.

"Everyone, stop this! How dare you show this level of disrespect to a transfer student!" The man looked furious at his class, but nowhere near as angry as the red head. "You boys are going to sit in detention today, make no mistake."

That actually got the boy who made fun of her hair to scowl, but a smirk was back on his face when he saw the grinding teeth of Uzumaki Kushina. His face was challenging, and Kushina knew that he would take her, any time, any place.

All she would have to do is name the location and the fight was on.

Before Kushina could make a retort about violent death to the boy, something crashed through the door that the Jounin teacher brought her through. Kushina jumped a little at the person who rolled on the floor and crashed onto the desk that she was standing beside. The desk made a loud bang as the person got off the desk ledge and ran out the door.

"Hold on there, not this time!" One of the tallest men Kushina had ever seen came into the class, dragging the small figure that had previously crashed into the room earlier.

She looked at the figure carefully and noticed that it was even smaller than her. "Sorry we are late. You wouldn't believe the kind of trouble this kid has put me through."

The Jounin Instructor who brought in Kushina looked at the person who the other Jounin clutched on his hands. "Is that the boy…you know the one we found on the outskirts?"

"The one and the same." The tall man yelled when the boy bit down on his arm and slammed his arm on the desk, getting the boy off him. Kushina winced when she heard a crack of skull and felt sorry for the boy who rolled of the desk, clutching his head.

"Think you're being rough on him, no?" The instructor who brought her over asked. "You might give the kid brain damage if you keep doing that."

The tall man blinked and frowned. "You wouldn't say that if you were the one who had to bring him here. The kid gave me a chase around half the village, jumped passed the city wall, and made me run after him down to the Valley of the End."

The other Jounin raised his eye brows. "You're bullshitting."

"Afraid not." The tall man leaned down on the desk and picked up the boy, and made the dizzy kid stand up straight. "God, I wish I was. But this kid, this kid is something else."

"Seems like a lot of trouble." Kushina's Jounin walked passed her and closed the door. "Well, no need for two of us. I did my job. See ya."

With that Kushina's Jounin was gone, and the class was left to look at the dizzy boy in awe. None of them had ever been to the Valley of the End. Too many dangers were associated with young children going there. It was a very dangerous location since it was the perfect place to land an ambush.

"Well, don't just look punch drunk." The tall man roughed up the boy who was quickly getting back his senses. "Introduce yourself and get to the back of the class."

Kushina, still angry at the comment about Tomato earlier, looked at the boy now in annoyance. He interrupted her response, and caused most of the class to focus on him. Though Kushina did not like to be made fun of, she did like attention.

When someone paid attention to her, it meant that she had a shot of making that person like her.

A small shot, but one nonetheless.

"How about I don't?" The boy looked at the man suspiciously. "How about I just run, and you try and catch me again. What'll happen?"

The Jounin went dead silent for a moment, then walked over to the desk and slammed his fist on it. The desk cracked into pieces and the kids at the front row ran up to the next row, trying to escape the shards of shrapnel.

"This, anything else you want to ask me?"

The boy's eyes looked annoyed, and he rolled them once. "Right, because you have to look after me 24/7." He looked at the class and scratched some leaves out of his head. "Hold on a minute, there is something in here."

With that the boy pulled out a small piece of metal. It was about the size of a needle and Kushina saw that it had some blood on it. The boy looked at it carefully then shrugged and tossed it into a bin. He turned to look at her for a minute, looked uninterested and went back to leveling a curious expression at the class.

Kushina felt somewhat annoyed that he ignored her like that, especially when she was so close to him but she didn't make a comment.

She observed what he was wearing and put her fingers on her nose to block out his stench. He smelled like trash, and looked worse than that. From head to toe he was muddy, so muddy that she couldn't tell what color his hair was, though she guessed that it was blond, at least the parts that showed.

Attached to his blond hair was some kind of headband to keep his hair out of his eyes, and below that was where things got a little tricky.

She couldn't be sure since he was so filthy, but she predicted that it was a dark shirt with a spiral on the centre. This was interesting because she had seen that spiral somewhere before, but didn't recall where.

Below that shirt was a pair of orange shorts that looked close to yellow. It hurt her eyes to look at it, and she smirked thinking how stupid he must have looked compared to her.

This definitely got the attention of class clown off her back.

The boy had blue eyes, the same color of her own and had about the same facial structure as herself. Somewhat boyish and slightly chubby.

But where her face was large and round, his face had a sharp contrast at the edges, indicating a boy who was used to being starved. Judging by how haggard his eyes looked and how many dark lines were attached to those sections, she guessed that he probably spent a lot of time looking for food in the streets.

But there was something about the way he stood that made him even more interesting in her eyes, it was the way he didn't care what the others thought of him. Even looking like trash, like utter filth, he was relaxed. He was even grinning at some of the boys who were pointing at him, and gave somewhat of a playful smirk at some of the girls who looked at him with distaste.

"Seriously, get this over with. I don't have all day." The Jounin nudged the boy on the back. "Introduce yourself now."

The boy looked like he was going to protest. He even had his glare leveled on the man, but closed his mouth and sighed. "Alright, alright." He looked back to the class and gave off a devilish sneer. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. Not sure what I am supposed ta say now, but it's nice to meet ya." He paused. "Sort of."

The man looked like he was going to bump his head against the desk, again, but controlled himself and pushed the boy to the back of the room. The boy protested all the way there, and almost tripped over a foot that a random boy spread out. But instead of tripping, the boy just reared back his foot and hit the boy who was about to trip him back.

"Nice try, kid." The blond haired boy messily took a seat that he was assigned to and glared at the Jounin one last time. "Okay. I am here. You happy now?"

The Jounin smirked. "Kid, you have no idea."

"I'll get out you know?" The boy pulled out something from his pocket. A pencil. "The moment you are out of here I'll just run off. I got shit ta do."

"Sure you do." The man said. "That's why I got a tracking seal on you, leave and I'll be on your ass like flies on a carcass."

The boy looked to be thinking, and shrugged. "I'll find a way around that." He paused. "Eventually."

After that exchange the man took a few steps back and walked down to the end of the class. The man looked at Kushina, who still stood there in the front like a fool and gestured for the little girl to sit in the back.

Kushina looked slightly wary of this command, but nodded just the same if only to get the strange man away from her. She could tell this person was dangerous, and she wasn't ready to face something like him…yet.

Slowly she walked passed the boys who made fun of her earlier, and made an effort not to trip at some of the feet that tried to get her. Unlike the blond haired boy before her she didn't ram her feet onto anyone, but she did give a death stare to anyone who tried to hurt her. She wanted to let them know that she wasn't a girl that they could cross.

"This seat is empty." She turned her head to the messy boy from earlier and held in her breath at his stench. It almost smelled like dried blood. What the hell was he doing before coming to class? The boy ignored her expression and pointed to a chair about two seat away. "If ya want to sit anywhere, feel free to sit here."

"Umm…no thanks." Uzumaki Kushina wasn't a mean person by nature. She was a kind and loving person, but even she didn't want to be near a trouble maker like this boy, even if his name sounded a lot like her own. "I think I'll sit back here." She gestured to a seat far away from the boy."

The boy shrugged and faced the classroom. Kushina took a seat on her chair and pulled off her back pack. Inside she found her pencil case and noticed that a few of the pencils were missing. She looked at her classmates and noticed some of the boys from earlier holding them. She grit her teeth, cursing herself for not noticing this act of theft earlier.

"Don't let them get ya down." She turned to face the boy who was also looking at the boys who stole some of her stuff. "They are trying to get ya pissed. Don't let them see you mad, or it'll get worse." He smiled to her, showing rows of dirty but surprisingly white teeth. "Trust me, I know."

"Thanks." She said this reluctantly and tried to avoid contact with the boy. She was nervous about making friends, but even she wasn't that desperate to make friends with someone like him. "I'll remember that."

"You better." The boy leaned back on his desk and looked at the ceiling.

Eventually the class resumed and Kushina managed to put the thought of getting her supplies back to the back of her mind. She had to focus on the next few subjects. They were going to have evaluations and she needed to get a higher score, or they would demote her to a lesser grade.

Kushina didn't want that and the shame of repeating the year gnawed at her thoughts the more times she failed to produce the right answers when the teacher called her out.

She was starting to feel even more frustrated when the sleeping street urchin from before managed to answer most of the questions that were on the board correctly, even when he had to be woken up by the teacher by thrown chalk pieces. It grated on her nerves that someone who wasn't even trying to pass this class was doing better than her when she had to put all her efforts just to keep up.

Her pen was working furiously trying to extract as much information about Chakra Theory, History, Math, and Science as possible, so that she wouldn't fail the quiz which would come up tomorrow.

She could just imagine the new kid, who was even newer than her, doing good. He seemed to be some sort of genius, despite how he looked since he didn't take any notes, and generated answers that startled the teachers.

"That's incorrect, Uzumaki-san," the teacher told her. "I am afraid your definition of Chakra has a few missing parts. Would anyone like to explain what it is…Ahh, Namikaze-san, you want to give it a shot?" Kushina looked even more frustrated when the second blond kid in her class, an annoying girly-boy by the name of Namikaze Minato answered the question, although it was slightly hesitant.

She wondered how true the saying was that blondes were complete idiots, since the only kids in her class with that hair color seemed to be a lot smarter than the rest, though one of them didn't look particularly smart.

Her own red hair meant that she had a sharp tongue, since comments about carrot top was a common way for other children to verbally abuse her, and her wit had to be just as sharp.

But seeing the street urchin shrug off all the annoying comments about sleeping in class from the instructors, she was starting to wonder if ignoring people who made fun of you was a better way of dealing with the hatred, than retorting back in kind.

The way the blond managed to pull off his smile, and nod when he was asked to answer a question made her realize that it sure was a lot easier than fighting back with sheer force when provoked.

Still, she couldn't do that. She didn't have it in her to let any rude comments made about her slide. She had pride in herself, and pride in every part of her. She wouldn't let someone shame herself into thinking that she was less than them, and she knew that she didn't have the kind of endurance the street urchin did when it came to shrugging off barbs.

To her, harsh words hurt, they cut deep, and she would slice right back at those who tried to hurt her.

"Hey, kid." She was taken away from her thoughts at the blond who was pointing to the class. "You sort of phased out for the past ten or so minutes."

"Pardon?"

"You just glared at your desk." The boy pointed to her desk. "I thought there was some kind of bug crawlin' on it, but turns out you were just looking at the wood." He blinked a couple times. "You're kind of weird, ya know that?"

Kushina huffed."Says the boy wearing trash for clothes." Then she realized what she had just said and caught herself. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean for it to sound…like that."

By then it was too late. The boy glared at her, and turned away. Kushina felt somewhat bad, but it annoyed her that he didn't accept her apology. She wasn't purposely trying to be mean, and he did call her weird first. What kind of person casually calls another strange without expecting some vicious retort back in response?

After packing her stuff she followed her classmates out of the room, but not before looking at the haggard looking boy's back. He seemed to be staring out the window, looking for something. Kushina shook her head and leaned against the wall when she almost tripped on a trap on the floor. She crushed it, realizing that it was probably the boy from earlier.

"You coming?" She didn't get a response back from the boy. He just looked back at her, looked at her strangely, then resumed looking out the window. "Fine, suit yourself!" She huffed and stormed out of the room, but not before slamming the door behind her.

…

When she got to the field her classmates were practicing on she felt her feet slip on the floor, and looked to see the same mud stain she got earlier. How strange that she had to step on the same pile of dog droppings from earlier. She groaned and took a piece of leaf from the ground to wipe it off and nodded her head when it was all gone.

Looking to the side she saw that the girly-boy, Namikaze Minato, stepped on something similar. Seemed like she wasn't the only one with horrible luck in bad weather. She took a few steps towards his direction, but stopped when she noticed a few people walk next to him. The blond haired boy turned to face these two, one a girl who was taller than Kushina, and another a boy who was taller than Minato himself.

Kushina felt somewhat hesitant now and stepped back to where she was before and looked around the field to find someone she could hang around and found no one. Every person in the room had some kind of friend they could depend on and she was the odd person out.

She looked to her teacher for help, but noticed that he was too far to see her plight. So instead of whining she decided to try and make contact with a few of her classmates.

"Tomato, the hell you doing here?" Kushina turned to see the same boy who made fun of her earlier and bit her lip, making sure not to say anything back. "Kage's aren't allowed on these training grounds."

Kushina thought that was a stupid statement, but decided not to anger the boy further. "Especially female Kages!"

That got a round of laughs from the boys next to him and Kushina clenched her fist to calm herself, making sure not to just slam into him for making that terrible statement. It wouldn't do to start the first day in class with a fight. It would ruin her already diminishing reputation and not many people made friends with delinquents.

The boy, Uzumaki Naruto, who was probably in the class, was proof of that.

"Can't you just leave me alone." Kushina said this through gritted teeth, there wasn't a shred of meekness in her voice. "Is it too much to ask to be left alone?"

"Sure, if you weren't such an idiot." The boy took a step towards her, and Kushina suddenly realized how tall he was. He was almost a head her length and probably twice as wide. "Coming into Konoha and saying you gonna be the next Hokage? You have some serious balls."

"I don't have balls," Kushina said, shaking from anger. "I am a girl."

The boy looked her up and down, and Kushina managed not to hit him when his eyes were at her bare stomach. "Prove it."

He reached his hands down to her, and Kushina couldn't stop herself. Her hands flew through the air and she grabbed the boy's wrist and slammed it over her shoulder, bringing his entire body with it. His head hit the ground and in an instant he was knocked unconscious.

"Sensei, Kushina just attacked a student!" Kushina turned around to see the girl that was next to Namikaze Minato point to her. "She just broke his head."

Kushina tried to make a response that it wasn't true, when her teacher cut her off. "Uzumaki, get up here." The teacher did not look amused. Kushina glowered at the tall raven haired girl, then glared at the teacher.

"I didn't do anything." She took a few steps towards him, ignoring the small rain drops that fell from the sky. "He tried to grab me and I defended myself."

"That's not true, Sensei." One of the thugs friends came to his defense. "She just came up to us and attacked us. She was mad about the comment we made earlier."

The Chunin instructor looked a bit skeptical but shook his head. "Two against one, Uzumaki-san." He looked at her. "Tell me, who am I supposed to believe."

Before she could make a response someone burst out laughing.

"Oi, that was awesome. I saw you break his head from down the field." Kushina turned around to see Uzumaki Naruto limp towards them. Apparently he had sprained his leg, how she didn't know that from earlier she had no idea. "He was gonna pull up your shirt and you just went all anti-perv on him. Nice, real nice."

He looked at her with approval and then at the teacher. "Yo, sensei, I thought we were gonna have target practice. What's taking so long?"

The teacher looked at the boy in surprise, then looked at Kushina and sighed.

"Okay, you are cleared." He looked at the friends of the boy who called her tomato. "Detention, all of you."

With that the teacher left them and Kushina turned back to Uzumaki Naruto who was laying on the muddy floor looking at the rainy sky. She approached him, cautiously, and covered her head with something as the rain continued to pelt down on them.

The teacher picked a horrible day to do target evaluations, but whether rain or shine, Shinobi had to adapt to the environment. Maybe the man even picked this day to teach them that lesson.

In any case Kushina had more interesting things to worry about, mainly one Uzumaki Naruto. "Thanks." She looked slightly guilty. "You didn't have to do that."

"Do what?"

The boy looked at her with real puzzlement. He got up on a sitting position, ignoring the rain falling onto his blond hair and down his face. Kushina thought he looked a lot darker that way, with his hair down on his face like that, while water fell down to his neck and clothing.

Now with the rain washing away a lot of the dirt she was startled at how similar he looked to an actual member of the Uzumaki clan.

"Oi, why are you lookin' at me like that?" He got off the floor and shook some of the water off his head, causing mud to fly everywhere.

Normally Kushina would get angry at mud hitting her, but the boy had gotten her out of trouble.

"There something on my face?" He pushed his face close to her own, making Kushina notice just how scrawny he was. "See anything there?"

The girl backed away when his forehead almost touched her own, and promptly tripped while walking back. The boy reached down and grabbed her hand and hoisted her back to the floor before she could fall. She was grateful, but slipped forward, and into his arms for just a second, causing the boy to look surprised, and her to look embarrassed.

"Sorry about that," he said. "Didn't mean to pull so hard."

"That's okay," Kushina answered, she mumbled the last part." It was sort of my fault."

"Eh, not really. It's the rain, makes things hard to stand on." He walked past her and pulled off his dirty shirt. Kushina looked away as he wrung the shirt out, letting muddy water fall down to the wet floor. "Man, I hate rainy days."

Kushina looked back at the boy, who still didn't wear his shirt. "Why?" She didn't mind rainy days. Rain was beautiful. "What is it about the rain you hate?"

The boy looked at her startled. "Oh, no. I don't hate the rain per say. Just rainy days in general."

He bent his neck down and pulled his shirt back on his body, not before giving Kushina a look at his back. It was just as corded as his arms. She noticed he had powerful arms, as if he trained a lot. The muscles on him were well defined, given his age, and his neck muscles were no laughing matter.

"I..um…okay." She had no comment on his statement, and it didn't look like he wanted to talk about it. "Do you want to partner up for the evaluation?"

She closed her eyes, fearing rejection. She knew she hadn't been very nice to him, and he could easily spite her back by saying no to her. A part of her hoped that he wouldn't but another part of her knew that it was inevitable. Though why she cared what he thought of her sort of irked her.

Just moments ago she wanted to get as far away from this urchin as possible, but now that he had shown his true colors, she wasn't so sure.

She opened her eyes to see the boy's attention on Namikaze Minato, and she felt annoyed. "

Hey, don't ignore me." She walked in front of him, making his tanned face look at her own tanned face. "Well, what do you say?"

The boy looked like he was coming out of some kind of stupor and shook his head.

"Sorry, I got distracted." His eyes went to Minato one more time, then back to her face. "You were saying?"

"I..need a partner." She looked hesitant to reveal the next part. "Everyone else is taken."

"I see." He looked around him, confirming what she said. "Then I guess I need one too." He smiled at her and took her hand.

With a jerk she was pulled to a run and the two of them made it in time to grab the last of the kunai and throwing stars that were needed to complete this test. The girl watched as the boy looked at his kunai in distaste. He quickly grabbed her kunai and looked it over as well.

Kushina watched him sigh to himself, throw the kunai at a nearby plank of wood and shake his head.

"Sucks, we got the worst of the bunch." He looked back at her. "Here, you're gonna need this. I'll show you how to throw this. It's not like the usual ones."

"No thanks." She steeled her gaze at him. "I can do this on my own." She turned to face the plank and let go of her kunai.

It didn't hit the mark. It didn't even hit the plank. Instead it hit a nearby tree and Kushina looked embarrassed as some of the girls behind her burst into giggles, while the boys made comments on her being a tomato headed idiot.

She looked around to see that Naruto was not in her sight and felt betrayed that the boy left her when she needed some reassurance that she wasn't a total outcast.

"Oi, here." She turned back to the plank and caught the kunai thrown at her. "Got it back for ya."

Naruto stepped over something on the ground, probably another trap, and was inches from her. "Let me show you how to throw that."

"I told you I don't need your help." Her red face became even redder and her hard eyes were meeting his own."What is your problem? You deaf or something?"

"Don't think so," the boy answered. "But I am pretty sure you are if you didn't hear what I just said to ya."

"I heard you loud and clear, and I don't need your help." She tried to hit the plank again and it missed. "See, now you got me so angry that I can't even hit right." She turned away from him and towards a group of kids, who laughed when she got nearby.

The boy ran behind her and touched her shoulder. "Listen, kid, I am tryin' ta help you." He pulled her back from that crowd before she could lunge on them. "You probably won't get this chance again, you hear?"

She glared at him, glared at those concerned blue eyes and reluctantly nodded. "Alright, but if this doesn't work I am going to punch you." She flexed her arms. "Got it?"

Uzumaki Naruto nodded, and smiled. "Sure thing, kid." It made Kushina annoyed that he called her that when he was almost as small as herself. "Okay, here is how you throw a kunai that doesn't have balance. You start by…"

As Naruto helped her throw the kunai at the targets, which initially got many of the boys nearby laughing at her dead aim, she was starting to wonder if the boy was sincere. She wasn't getting any better and no matter how many times she tried listening to his advice, it wasn't working. But when she voiced her concern the boy shrugged and told her to repeat what she did again.

Namikaze Minato and his friends were getting better result than her, and she still hadn't seen what Uzumaki Naruto was capable of, so she wondered if he was just bullshitting all along. Maybe he didn't know how to throw a kunai at all, and just wanted to be around someone.

With the way he looked she doubted he had many friends, sort of like her.

She looked around the raining field and saw girls her own age in their own group and looked at them with longing, especially when Naruto yelled at her to get back to practicing. Kushina didn't like following orders, especially not from someone her own age, but the seriousness of the boy's voice told her that he wasn't to be crossed.

Truthfully the boy scared her somewhat. Not in the way of danger, but in the way that he looked at some of the classmates. Especially how he looked at Namikaze Minato, looking at him with such intense longing. It made her kind of sick that he was checking out the other boy so much, but she decided not to comment.

So what if Naruto was into Minato? Nothing wrong with that. As far as she could tell he wasn't hurting anyone, and even if Minato looked uncomfortable when him and Naruto met eye contact, Naruto wasn't making any signs of forcing himself to be near Minato, if anything he looked reluctant to get close to Minato.

"Hey, can you pay attention to me, and the girl-wonder?" Kushina waved over Naruto's eyes. "Hello, is someone there?"

The boy's eyes got back to her."Oh, shit. Sorry. I did it again didn't I?" He looked kind of guilty. "Sorry about that."

"Why do you keep doing that?"

"Doing what?"

"Looking at the Namikaze kid." She pointed to the other blond and his group of friends, a group that seemed to be getting bigger. "He doesn't even like you."

Naruto looked startled. "Um, how do you know that?"

"They've been moving away from us for the past hour or so."

"Oh." The boy looked hurt, and Kushina felt bad. "But that's cause he doesn't know you!"

"Yeah, right. I am sure that's it." He said this while looking at something off at a distance. For a second she thought he was looking into space, but noticed that there was someone in a tree nearby, watching Naruto.

Kushina was about to ask who was inside the tree when the shadow on the tree disappeared and Naruto turned to face her. "Okay, you'll get it this time." He pointed to the target. "Just do what I said. I'm telling ya, you'll get it."

Kushina wasn't so sure about that, but did as she was instructed. Miraculously it worked. It actually hit the plank. She turned to Naruto studying her movements and was shocked when he grabbed her hands and looked at the callous.

She was kind of embarrassed that a boy touched her hands that way. "You train a lot?" He looked at her, and Kushina saw approval in his eyes. "Good."

She nodded. "Only thing I am good at." She paused. "That and brawling."

The boy smirked. "We should fight some time."

Suddenly a whistle blew through the air and both children turned to face the Chunin instructor. They looked back at one another and nodded. They would both do their best in this evaluation. Slowly they made their way into the line, and Naruto even pushed one of the boys who tried to push Kushina.

The redheaded girl protested that he didn't need her help, but Naruto didn't give her back a response.

Instead the blond boy bashed through the line, till they were standing behind Namikaze and his friends. Kushina grabbed onto Naruto's shoulder and pulled him away before he could get closer to that particular group, but not before giving him an annoyed look.

The urchin was not going to make friends by just being near the people he wanted to be friends with.

Friendship just didn't work that away.

Naruto looked angry when she did this, but she wouldn't relent on this and so the boy had to follow. They waited in line, a small distance away from the wary Namikaze and Kushina took the time to study the boy much more closely. When she grabbed his arm earlier she felt loads of coiled muscles. It was hard like rocks.

To her that was strange since most children her age had soft muscles.

There was also the haggard look about him, like he had been fighting with a blender, and wasn't looking to give up any time soon. His hair was in a huge disarray and the leaves that still clung to it proved that he had been traveling through bushes for a while now.

What caught her attention was that some of the leaves didn't look native to Konoha, so he must have been outside the village earlier.

"It looks like it's your turn," the boy said. He gently pushed her to the front. "Knock them dead, kid."

"Stop calling me that!" She said this a bit too loudly and more laughter rang out around her. She growled and picked up a kunai. "I am not a kid."

"Right," the boy replied. "Just hit the target."

Kushina growled at him and turned to the target. She looked at the boys around her, and looked at the girls who sneered at her as well. Not everyone in the class was making fun of her, most weren't even, but it seemed like no one wanted her to succeed. She cursed herself for making such a stupid response earlier, but knew she would just have to play along with the Kage statement.

"Watch me, I am gonna be the next Hokage!" With that she let the Kunai fly, just as Naruto told her to and, oddly enough, it actually hit the mark. She looked completely shocked and turned to Naruto who smirked at her, and pulled out a kunai from his pocket.

She noticed that it was the kunai they had been practicing with earlier, the one with the strange balance and noticed for the first time that she threw a different kunai. She heard someone yell something about missing their kunai and turned to see the dark haired girl with a pony tail who was standing beside Minato walk towards the plank.

Kushina sneered when she realized what Naruto had done and looked at the girl pulling her kunai out of the plank in satisfaction. This particular girl was one of the reasons she couldn't talk to Minato, couldn't even get near him because of the look she gave her, a look that told her that she wasn't worthy or something.

"Very nice, Uzumaki." The instructor gestured for her to take a seat out of the lesson. "Full marks, you don't need to show it again."

"But sensei!" The boy beside Minato looked affronted. "That wasn't even her kunai!"

The instructor looked annoyed. "Doesn't matter, unless that kunai was something special she gets full marks. Now go wait your turn. You guys can't sit out till you get at least one hit near the mark." So this continued for another hour while Kushina stood to the side, with a smirk on her face.

She had shown her class that she was better, shown them that she could be just as good as Namikaze Minato, the boy who had claimed earlier that he would be Hokage one day. She scoffed at the boy who stood next to her, scoffed at the way he dressed and looked, like some kind of sissy.

"Hey, that was pretty good." She turned to face Minato. "How did you learn to switch the kunai like that?"

Kushina blinked. "I didn't switch the kunai."

Minato looked puzzled. "But…who did?"

Kushina pointed to Uzumaki Naruto who once again hit a perfect score. Naruto was told to sit it out, but he continued to go the rounds with everyone else. It was like he was rubbing it in that he was so much better. It surprised her how good he was at hitting the mark, and made her question just what kind of life he must have lived to get that good.

"That Naruto…he sort of scares me." Minato looked afraid. "He's been giving me these strange looks for the past hour or so."

Kushina felt annoyed that Minato was talking to her about Naruto. She didn't expect the class genius to just approach her and make friends with her like that, but to talk to her to get information on Uzumaki Naruto? That pissed her off. Kushina decided that she wouldn't talk about the urchin, especially when said boy had helped her out earlier.

"Can you tell me why he keeps staring at me." This was it, Minato was going in for the direct approach. "Has he told you anything."

Kushina grit her teeth. "No, he didn't. Go away." She stood up and turned her back towards the genius. "If you aren't here to talk to me, then I don't want you to talk to me. Leave me alone."

Minato looked like he had made a mistake, and promptly tried to correct it. "Listen, it's not that I don't want to talk to you. I just wanted to know about the new kid first."

"If you haven't noticed, I am also a new kid." She pointed to herself. "You aren't going out of your way asking anyone about me."

"Because I can ask you about _you_." He admitted.

"Then you should have done so from the start." She scowled at the prodigy and walked towards Naruto. "Naruto, think you've shown off enough."

The boy looked at her strangely. "Showing off? The hell. I just wanted to practice."

This got some annoyed groans from some of her classmates and Kushina could feel the searing hatred many of the humiliated students gave off when Naruto made this statement. Kushina wasn't the most subtle person on the planet, but even she wouldn't say something so brain dead out loud, especially like that.

"Come on." She grabbed his hand and made him sit this one out. "Before someone throws a kunai at you."

…

The day finally ended when the last of the evaluation began. Not surprisingly it was the Taijutsu portion of the evaluation to judge what kind of previous hand to hand combat training the children had. This would allow the instructor to make a battle plan to train the students based on what the students already knew.

Though there was already a standard academy regiment, the specialty moves that were taught were based heavily on how many students in the class could actually perform them.

So far the instructor got everyone together into pairs again to practice and Kushina ended up with Naruto again, much to her annoyance. The boy still looked distracted and wasn't paying as much attention to her as he should and felt the need to strike him upside the head a few times when he freaked out Namikaze Minato.

The fact that the class was glaring at the two of them wasn't helping, especially after the comments on how easy everything was started coming from Naruto. Due to the blond's help Kushina managed to do well in several of the evaluations, not just the kunai and star throwing, so her grades were on par with Namikaze Minato, but the majority of her classmates weren't doing so well.

Of course most of their malice was directed to Naruto so she didn't have to keep watching her back for any attacks, though she did catch one of the boy's setting up some kind of trap for Naruto, only for Naruto to see it and find a way to set the traps back on said child. He didn't even seem that bothered that there were several attempts of this in the course of the class.

When she asked him why he didn't care he got very mysterious and said he was used to this, so she didn't bother to go further. Clearly the boy wasn't going to talk about his past, and frankly she didn't have time to listen.

"Uzumaki, get over here." Kushina was sent out of her day dream of being a Hokage from the shout from her teacher. She looked at the annoyed boy who was waiting to spar with her. "Hurry up!"

The redhead nodded, stood up, dusted herself off, and ran down the rainy courtyard to where the boy stood in a Taijutsu stance. She couldn't recognize it, and couldn't tell the strength of it, but from the advice she got from Naruto Kushina knew that she had to hit her opponent quickly in this condition.

"Start!" Kushina immediately bolted and speared her opponent to the ground. In an instant she was on top of him slamming her fist on his face.

It only took two seconds to get him to quit and the teacher looked annoyed that he didn't get to evaluate his male student. Still he gave Kushina points for speed and even gave her some advice on quickly tripping opponents and how to dodge if they try to grab you while tripping.

That made her happy, and knew that she would have to try that next time on her next opponent.

Of course her quick victory over that boy did come with consequences. Not many of the boys approved of a girl being so good at brawling and many tried to do the same thing she did, and to her even, but a piece of advice from Naruto got that situation turned around when she did a reverse on every tackle that came her way.

It was just a matter of using their own momentum against them and victory was secured.

When it came time to face Namikaze Minato she was certain that she wouldn't lose and waited for the boy to attack, but the attack never came. Instead the blond waited for her to make the first move. Before she could do that, however, Naruto called from the crowd of kids watching. "His left leg is injured, hit his left kneecap!" Kushina looked at that spot and saw the weak point. "Yeah, see it? Hit that!"

She nodded to herself, knowing exactly where to hit and looked at the face of one angry Namikaze Minato who looked positively murderous at the other blond. Kushina understood why. He hadn't been defeated by anyone yet either, but the injury he had gotten earlier when he was trampled by an Akimichi had gotten him an injury.

Kushina now meant to exploit that injury and the two both knew that this battle was not going to be easy on him.

So it came to a great surprise when Minato tripped her when she ran into him, and slammed her face into the mud. She tried to get out of his grasp, but he wrapped his arms behind her and trapped her in a hold. She let out a scream when the hold became more painful and had to give up after the pain got too much. She didn't know what annoyed her more.

The fact that she lost, or the laughing Uzumaki Naruto when Minato won.

"Sensei, we need you. All Chunins are requested for a brief meeting." Someone came in to get their teacher. "This will not take long, but this is a serious emergency."

With that their teacher left them alone and Kushina started to feel the glares of all the people she had defeated today. Only most of them were on Naruto. Kushina was at least respectful when she fought her opponents.

Naruto didn't even look like he was trying.

Even now when more than half the class was surrounding him he just looked at the fleeing Chunins, like he knew something. Like he knew what the meeting was about.

"Kid, you might want to step back." Kushina felt Naruto's hand on her shoulder. "I got to take care of something."

She looked at the haggard looking kids surrounding them. Then she looked back at Naruto, she was worried for him.

"I'll stay, you can't fight this many on your own." She stepped in front of him, only to be flung back. "What is your problem!" She screamed at him.

His eyes narrowed for a fraction while he turned his head to glare at her. "This isn't your problem. Plus you'll only just get in the way."

She opened her mouth and shut it. She took a step back and took cover near a boulder. Peeking out of the boulder she watched as Uzumaki Naruto did something that would change her perspective of what it means to be strong…forever.

...

Authors Notes: It took me a while to write this, but I hope it was worth it. When the latest chapter of Naruto came out, I knew it was time. This had to be done. There was no question Why, it was When! Now that I've written it please enjoy this humble author's work. I'll probably take a while to update the next chapter, unless for some odd reason I get a boatload of feedback telling me to continue. I am not really expecting much so far, but who knows what might happen. You guys are probably wondering what the hell is up with Naruto? Yes. He has travelled back in time, that much should be obvious, but his circumstances are interesting. Many stories have focused on the Minato Kushina parts of the character relationship, but I've always found the POV of a prodigy like Minato to be very, very annoying. I've always been a fan of the underdogs, and Minato is not my cup of Tea. He's not a bad character, but he is seriously boring. I don't mind smart characters, but you just don't feel for them like you feel for the reckless ones with a good heart. No, I don't think this is going to be a NarutoKushina and Minato is not going to be a villain, frankly he is just a kid. There will not be any bashing since I really don't have the time for that, but if you have suggestions feel free. Sadly I'll have to wait for the next chapter before I have enough material to start on the next. The consolation is that it might be worth it! So please review and let me know what you think.

Doesn't take much. Just give me a click!

Sincerely,

Avg. Naruto


	2. Day 2: My Trouble Maker

Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Kishimoto and Co. I own nothing. Absolutely nothing.

* * *

**Chapter Two**

My Trouble Maker Uzumaki Naruto

...

Kushina was more than just a little aware of peaceful solutions to ending a fight.

_This one certainly was not one of them. _

Probably because it involved Naruto going up to the nearest boy, some innocent person with a black puppy sitting on his head, and socking him in the face, when he wasn't looking. Of course the puppy wearing boy wouldn't take this sitting down and immediately made a furious lung to tackle Naruto, only for Naruto to dodge it, letting the other kid slam onto another boy, a fat one this time.

That other boy, Kushina referred to him as pig, was not amused at being tackled by the puppy wielder and immediately punched the dogboy in the face, sending him crashing onto a lazy looking bum, who suddenly didn't look so lazily, and appeared to be contemplating running away, or standing to fight. Fortunately that decision was taken care of for, when some random kid stared punching his face. In fact, within a matter of minutes, the class overhyped children was more/less brawling each other, due to a few random missed punches thrown at Naruto, that ending up hitting each _other_ instead.

The fact that it was soggy and raining outside helped immensely, since the students could barely see who they were fighting, heck there was another blond in the kid, and some of the kids went after him thinking it was Uzumaki Naruto, much to that other kid's ire.

Still, Kushina had to admit that the boy had guts if he could deal with this group of people without looking tired, in fact, if anything, he looked tremendously happy, as if he was just playing around with them. To her annoyance Namikaze Minato simply walked out of the field and took his group of friends with him. Too bad. She wanted to get into the massive school rumble and take him down a peg or two.

"You son of a bitch!" the puppy-wearing boy yelled. "Get back and fight me like a _man_!"

Now that Kushina got a better look at him, something was just plain _off_ about the student. She just couldn't place it into words. The dogboy looked a little too short, not as short as Naruto, but pretty close. Instead of a strong sharp oval face, his face was a bit more triangular, with a soft contours that most boys lacked.

Then there was the boy's hair, that spiked worse than Naruto's, even if it was only half the size of Naruto's, with leaves and mud covering the top. On top of that the boy wore a large baggy grey jacket, something that confused the hell out of the redhead, since it was raining and wasn't even that hot. Below the jacket was a set of khaki cut off pants, and black sandals.

Over all the boy looked pretty normal, aside from the slit like eyes, the tattoo, and the fangs, but still..something was just not _right_ about the whole situation. The way the boy acted, his posture, his temperament, and the fact that the boy had a high pitched voice in between deep growls, just something off…

In any case Kushina decided that right now it was in her best interest to get the hell away from this mess, before the class got the bright idea to pin even part of the blame on her. It wasn't that she was afraid. It was more that she was afraid of getting in trouble, and the idea of the Chunin instructor coming out of nowhere and seeing more than half his class demolished was not an appealing prospect to the new student.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Uzumaki Naruto.

"I think we should scat," he said, sounding cheerful. "That Inuzuka is gonna kick my ass if he sees me again."

"Well you did just punch him out of nowhere," Kushina replied, sounding annoyed. "He wasn't even doing anything, just standing there talking to his dog."

"True, but that kid was my best shot out of that situation," Naruto answered, sounding like he did the right thing. "You want to get a brawl started, you find one of those mutts, get them riled up, and wait for it."

"Still..I think you've made an enemy," Kushina said, looking back at the Inuzuka who was in the middle of the storm tearing up the inside of the crowd to hunt down Uzumaki Naruto. "I'd be worried about coming to school if I were you."

Naruto shrugged. "Been there, done that, believe me I am used to being a pariah." He grabbed her hand, and slipped it away due to the slippery rain. Then he grabbed it again and pulled. "C'mon we better get out of here before that bastard gets my scent."

"Where are you Uzumaki!" A roaring voice from behind them said, sounding like thunder. "Come back here and fight me, teme!"

Kushina shivered at the amount of rage in that yell.

Again, there was just something not right about the way the dog boy talked, it reminded her of someone. She just couldn't put into words. The girl looked ahead of her to see Naruto laugh, and scowled. The boy was clearly not taking the threat on his life seriously, and was simply getting away from a situation that would probably escalate to something fierce by the time they got out of there.

Fortunately for the two of them school was officially over so they were allowed to leave without being stopped, unfortunately for Naruto he slipped on something on the ground, taking Kushina down with him, making the two of them soaked. Kushina groaned at her beautiful new dress, well at least she thought it was beautiful, and scowled even more when she realized that Naruto didn't give a crap about what the state of his clothes were.

In fact the boy got up, pulled off his shirt and just threw it in a nearby dumpster.

"Man, I am glad to get out of there." He walked to a nearby stall and pulled out some change. "Give me two dango, please."

"Just two?" The cashier did not look amused. "You are kidding right?"

"Do I look like I am made of money?" Naruto emptied his pockets and Kushina noticed that there wasn't a penny in it. "Seriously, do I look like someone here to buy out the store?"

The cashier laughed, and pulled out two beans.

"Tell you what, kid. I'll give you a discount just for that." He pulled out two from a stick of red bean dango. "One for you, and one for you lady friend…or I think that's a lady, hard to tell with all that mud."

Kushina frowned, but didn't say anything. Instead she just accepted her gift and glared at Naruto from a short distance. She couldn't believe how casually he was taking this. Tomorrow when they went to school the entire class was going to be after his head, and hers by extension. There was no way she could take all of them. Sure the boys were one thing, but everyone else was another.

She walked next to him, trying to figure out what his angle was, and came up with blanks. He just didn't look like he had real motive to do this. It was more like a spur of the moment, even if it was successful, and he didn't seem to care how much this troubled her.

She punched him in the shoulder just to get his attention and he looked back at her with surprise.

"What's wrong?" Kushina glowered. He corrected himself. "Never mind, I know. I mean is there anything else you wanna discuss?"

"Yes!" Kushina said heatedly, grinding her teeth together. She breathed in and breathed out, just so she didn't wail on him at this very moment. "Kami, yes! You have to be kidding me. You just picked a fight with everyone! Sure they were probably going to rough you up a bit, but after what you just pulled back there, what do you expect to do now? They are going to destroy you, you've made idiots out of them! What can you possibly gain from that?"

"Er, nothing." He stood up and tossed his dango stick out into a bin and gave a thumbs up to the chef, who, surprisingly, did the same. He turned back to her and smirked. "But ya gotta admit that was pretty awesome."

Kushina tried not to smile, she really did, but a small one just had to come out. Then seeing Naruto's smile get larger due to that small win, she frowned again and beat her hands on her head.

"Ahhh! I am so dead tomorrow, I swear to Kami that dog boy is going to be after my hide thanks to you!" She got up and started shaking Naruto by the collar. "Do you know how nervous I was today? Do you have any idea how much I wanted to make new friends? Do you know you just ruined that for me!"

Naruto looked on in surprise, then smiled. "Do you know if you had acted like this today, you probably could have made friends pretty easily? Seriously, I am terrified of saying _no_ to a friend like you. You come up to me with that attitude and tell me to follow, I'd get behind."

Kushina looked at him in puzzlement, then let him go slowly. Gently she put her hands on her face and sat back down on a chair. "I…was nervous today." She didn't him to see her sad. "This was my first time in a school. You don't know what it's like, being an outsider. This place, Konoha, I've never been here before. I had to move, they made me move, it isn't fair!"

"Life is not fair," Naruto said, shrugging. He leaned against a pole and ate Kushina's share of the dango stick when she wasn't looking. "Ya just gotta suck it up and go with it. Don't let anyone bring you down, don't let anyone tell you what to do, and follow your dreams."He paused. "Or at least that's what our sensei would say, personally I think that's a load of bullshit."

Kushina looked up and glared.

Out of all the people she could be stuck with in her first day of school, this boy should not have been one of them. He was rude, dirty, savage, violent, uncaring, crazy, and most of all, bizarre beyond reason. One moment his mind was on something serous, the next he just wanted to play. He seemed distant, ,yet when she felt worried he was so close. Almost like he could sense her discomfort.

"Can you tell me something?" Kushina got up and stood next to him. 'The kid is seriously scrawny, what does he eat?' "What was looking at you from the shadows today?"

"Huh, you saw that?" He tilted his head, letting a streak of water fall down on one side. "I thought I did a better job at hidin' em."

"What? Hiding a person?" That didn't make any sense, why would he have to hide someone. Bette yet, how could he hide someone? "Are you kidding me?"

"Afraid not." He walked past her, letting her know that the conversation was done. "I'll tell ya about those things hiding in the trees another day. Well, maybe, honestly I am not sure if I'll be here long enough to tell ya. But I guess it couldn't hurt, some of the Jounins know about it anyway."

With a leap the boy was on a roof. He turned to her, unmindful of the storm and grinned. "Hey, you wanna see something cool?" Kushina wasn't so sure she should. "Come on, it'll be so worth it. This'll make you super strong. I promise."

'Stronger?' Kushina's eye brows rose and she followed him immediately.

The two jumped from roof to roof getting to whatever location Naruto had in mind, once Kushina slipped and almost fell, but Naruto caught her and brought them both back to the right path. As they jumped Kushina could see it all. Her entire village. Konoha, the village of the hidden leaves. It was incredible, it was large, and it was so ordered.

In the east there was a giant compound with the Hyuga Seal on the largest building. On the west was an even larger district with its own little town in it. This one had the Uchiha crest, and Kushina was a bit hesitant to approach it. Especially when she noticed that it was the direction they were going.

"Er, Naruto." Kushina paused. This was the first time she had used his name. "Where are we going exactly?"

"Nowhere special, just a place where I setup some traps." He jumped over a pole and landed on the roof of the highest building. "Oi, hurry up, or I am gonna leave you."

"Coming!" she shouted, sneezing when a large splash went into her nostril. "But can you slow down just a little?"

The boy scowled. "If I do that, I am not gonna be able to activate it on time. Trust me, that would be real shame." Naruto picked up Kushina who slipped on a stray tile. "Watch it, those things can kill you, especially if you slip on them from this height."

"I'll try to keep that in mind," she mumbled. She wanted to call him a teme, but decided not to push it. The boy had a ruthlessness about him. "Wait a minute, don't tell me you are going into the compound!"

Naruto didn't answer. Instead he ran down the roofs faster and faster, making it hard for Kushina to keep up. "Now hold on, I didn't agree to this!" She flipped and almost broke her head on a chimney. Groaning she got up, and immediately started chasing. "Naruto, stop. You are going to get killed!"

Kushina was new to the village but even she knew not to mess with the Uchiha. They were one of the strongest clans in the elemental nations, and there was no way a mere boy like Uzumaki Naruto was going to just get away for assaulting them. To Naruto it could be mere fun, but if they took it the wrong way she wasn't sure what they would do to him. Running past the slippery roofs she jumped down to ground level and followed him on foot.

Soon they were inside the district. Fortunately not many people were out due to the rain, and no one made a comment on her running down their district. This gave Kushina chance to study the area and marvel at how impressive it was. It really was a small town within a town. They had everything a Ninja clan could ever want and more. They had their own restaurants, supplies, and weapon's stores as well. This was just incredible, Not even the Hyuga had this kind of a settlement.

Then realizing what she was here for, she shook those thoughts out of her mind and chased after her classmate, who was getting further and further away from her. She hated this, she hated how fast he was, and resolved to get faster next time. She had been slacking in her physical training and it certainly showed. Her chubbiness was one part genetics, but a large part was a lack of constant training. Her art of seals had prevented her from going out much, hence her nervousness around people, but now that she was at the academy she was sure she couldn't just keep living like this.

Still, she contemplated that her time at the academy would probably be cut short if she continued to follow around the urchin Uzumaki Naruto, especially with the way he was approaching the largest house in the entire district.

She shivered when she recognized what the place really was. This place, this monster of a place, was the Head House of the Uchiha District. 'This is where the Head of the Uchiha Clan lives.' "Naruto, teme!" she shouted. "You want to die? Get out of there!"

"Oi, red, you are here? I thought I lost ya." He jumped down from his place on the roof and grabbed her hand. She tried to pull away, horrified at his happy expression. "It's about time to activate, you gotta see this."

"No, I don't want to." She closed her eye and put all her strength into breaking his grip. It wasn't working. "Please, Naruto, we have to leave. I have a bad feeling about this." Her eyes shifted everywhere, one by one doors were opening

The boy snorted. "Please, I've done this a million times before. They don't even have half the security as they did the last time I did this." That got a raised eyebrow from Kushina, she wasn't sure what he meant by the _last_ time. If he had pulled something like this previously, why wasn't there any measures to safeguard against him?

"Shit, he's coming out." Quickly he put his dirty hand on her mouth and pulled her into an alley. "Just watch."

Kushina looked to the side to see what he was dragging her away from and noticed a tall boy who looked older than his true age implied. The boy was probably a mid level Chunin, and maybe even higher than that. He wore the standard Konoha Chunin uniform, and eve had a headband. Kushina really didn't have a good feeling about this.

"If I let you go, will you promise me not to scream?" Kushina fumed. "Alright, alright. Take it easy. No need to get angry. Just a little joke, that's all."

The redhead coughed when he let go and touched her neck. For a boy so small, he had a firm grip. Giving him another glare, she turned back to the scene and crouched in the shadows of the alley with the boy behind her. Slowly, the Chunin looked to the ground and saw a box. With careful hesitation he picked up the box, and tipped it over a few times. It looked like a simple box, well as simple as one can make it for one that looked to be holding presents.

Still the boy was a lot more clever than that and was taking the threat of the box seriously. He used his Sharingan to see any Chakra signatures inside of it, then shook it up to see if it could be any kind of dangerous trap. Satisfied that it wasn't the boy looked at the tag, saw the name, and was even more curious.

"How do you know he is going to open it," Kushina asked. "He doesn't look like an idiot."

"I put a name of a certain girl on it, trust me we are gonna see the thing open." He placed his fingers in his ears and Kushina did the same. "Three, two, one…"

Nothing happened when he opened the box. In fact the Uchiha just found a piece of paper on it. Slowly he touched it, and that is when he realized how screwed he was. In a second the ground beneath him exploded, as explosive tags were activated by the seal array on the box. He tried to jump up only to find he couldn't move, due to the secondary function of the tag paralyzing him.

Kushina noticed the note was designed to look like some kind of love note, or something along those lines. She turned to Naruto who chuckled evilly at the boy falling into a pit a few meters from his own house. 'How did he manage to dig a hole that large on his own? Without anyone ever seeing him?'

Within seconds the entire clan was running out the door to see what the commotion was, and ran toward the direction of the noise.

"Yes, take that teme. Capture me will? Put me in prison will you? Don't mess with Uzumaki Naruto!" Naruto was dancing in the alley, holding onto his side when more people started coming out. "They've taken the bait, yes! Come out you lousy temes!"

Kushina wasn't so sure of the boy's sanity and decided to back away from him. Then realizing what would happen to her if they found her she got angry, her blue eyes narrowed. "You are idiot!" She had to hiss this part so that they wouldn't be heard. Shaking from panic her eyes trailed to every exit. "We are trapped, do you know what they are going to do to us if they find us?"

"If enough of them are left to find us that is."

"Huh?"

She heard another yell as more tags exploded from the ground as the Uchiha families ran to help the boy, who was falling in the pit, only instead of these tags being filled with explosives to kill, it looked to be filled with explosives made from…droppings. She held in her breath so that she wouldn't smell it, and was sickened by the sight before her.

"I sealed shit, literally _shit_, I found in the Forest of Death," Naruto admitted, The boy pointed to some of the creative ones. "That one is from a giant centipede, that one from a giant rat, that from….no idea…err that was one I don't even want to say…that one from another giant centipede."

"The forest must have a lot of centipedes."

"That they do."

Naruto nodded at his handy work and watched as the parents and families of the clan tried to wash themselves off in the pouring rain, only to find that it spread much faster. "Oh, and I put an oily solution. This way it spreads if ya add water, kinda like how grease fires spread when ya add water."

"And you think they aren't going to kill you for doing that?" Kushina was literally shaking from both terror and anger. "Damn it! If someone looks this way, we are so finished!"

"Mikoto, get down here and help your cousin!" Kushina couldn't see the girl who was running down the street very well, but she was pretty sure she was a classmate. "Renji, Kenji, Ichi, go get the scouts. We are going to hunt those little bastards right now."

"Yeah, I think it's time to go." Naruto grabbed Kushina by the shoulder. "Ever been long distanced switched before?"

Kushina noticed his hands form some kind of strange seal that she was unfamiliar with. Before she disappeared she turned around and saw it. Uchiha MIkito. The tall, dark haired girl was standing there looking at them with a nervousness unfamiliar to a ninja. Before the female Uchiha could say something Kushina felt a shift in her mass and literally felt herself vanish.

…

She coughed when she felt smoke enter her lungs and looked up to see Uzumaki Naruto holding out his hands. She took it and stood up…in a room? This didn't make any sense. She was pretty sure she was inside of a room.

It was the dankest room she had seen in her life. The wood at the top was wet, with drain drops falling through the cracks. The walls had holes in them, and termites were crawling out from the cracks. There were no windows, and there were seals in every inch of the place. Like this was some kind of fortress.

A very ugly one at that.

Not only that but there was a giant scroll, a totally humongous one even, hanging on the wall. She recognized the design somewhat, but something was off with the seal array, as if someone had added a design she already knew. Sighing she decided to ask about it later, and looked at the boy sitting on a chair, dabbing ink into paper and writing something.

Slowly she walked behind him and saw him make a sealing scroll. 'Interesting.' So he was sort of a Seal apprentice like her. 'Then again, with a name like Uzumaki, that isn't that big of a surprise.'

"By any chance are you from the Uzumaki clan?" she asked, hoping that she had found another in this shithole of a village. "Your last name is…Uzumaki."

"Plenty of people with that last name." He spun around on his desk and smiled. Kushina cringed at the amount of mud on his face. "Wasn't aware there was a clan called Uzumaki. Is it in Konoha?"

"No, it's not native to fire country. The clan is based in the Hidden Village in the…never mind. You can probably look it up. I just thought with your seals, and with your name, you might be a member. But then my great-aunt didn't say I would meet another."

"You aunt?" Naruto looked genuinely curious. "What's her name? The only other Uzumaki I know of in this place is that old crone Mito who lives near the Hokage Tower."

"…that's my great-aunt."

"Oh." Naruto paused, scratching his chin. "Er, I still think she is an old crone."

Kushina glared. "I don't care what you think!"

"That's kinda mean, don't ya _think_?" The boy went to a fridge, that looked like it had stopped working a very long time ago, and looked through the freezer part of it. "You want anything to drink?" He pulled out a bottle of water, and a bottle of orange solution. "I have spring water, or orange juice." Take your pick."

"Orange."

Naruto looked reluctant to pass that over but shrugged and tossed it to her. The chubby cheeked girl caught it and opened the cap with a quick twist. She took a seat at the only place in the broken down looking place that wasn't wet and noticed that the rain had destroyed so much of the wood. The place was so beyond ruined that it wasn't even funny. Then a thought came to her.

One that she should have realized earlier.

"Where exactly are we?" She looked out in a crack and noticed something large slithering. "This isn't the town sector is it?"

"Er, no, it's not." The boy pointed a snake coming out from the ground nearby. "You normally don't have to use pet snakes to keep out big game like rats the size of dinner plates, a cat could easily do that job."

Kushina nodded while simultaneously shifting away from the snake that was chasing a rat nearby, a rat that looked like it could beat up a dog. "I have to admit that your escape was kind of a surprise." She looked at the broken fort. "I thought for a moment we were goners."

"Nah, impossible. I usually keep small bases like these around the village. Makes for a quick way to escape. We aren't even that far from the Uchiha District. Long Distance Body Switch doesn't work very well if you are than half a kilometer from the location you start with. Any further and you might need to use a Shunsin."

"What's a Shunsin?" she asked. "Sounds familiar."

"Long distance teleportation jutsu. You'll learn about it next year. Not sure when you'll learn to _perform_ it." He went to a nearby closet and pulled out a white shirt. Kushina was surprised to see now normal he looked with it on. Even more surprising was the Uzumaki Clan symbol at the centre. Before she could ask him about it however he clicked his teeth and scratched his head.

"Son of a bitch!" He yelled. "I told that bastard not to be so obvious! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"

"What's wrong?" Kushina asked. "What's got you so worried?"

Naruto looked back at her with shock in his eyes. "Oh sorry, I forgot you were here." He looked up, ahead of him to the thunderstorm outside, and sighed. "Hold on, I am going to meditate for a second over there."

He took a seat near her and started to hum. Slowly his eyes began to twitch every few minutes, and he would later hold his head and groan every time his eyes twitched. "How hard can it be not to get hit? These idiots know that if they get one hit they smoke, kami you shits are utter morons!"

"Who are morons?" Kushina honestly didn't know what to think, was he menta.? "Who are you talking too?"

"In a minute," Naruto answered her. "Just give me another minute." With that he continued to curse every few minutes, until he was done and stood up, holding his head.

"God, I have such a massive headache," he said. He looked at her and grimaced. "No, don't worry it has nothing to do with you. Are you hungry?"

She nodded, realizing that she hadn't eaten since their entire ordeal. "Yes, if it isn't too much trouble."

She waited for him to make a comment about her chubby cheeks, but he didn't. Instead he went to a broken looking fridge and pulled out a cup of ramen. He placed the cup of ramen between the two of them and pulled out some sticks from a shelf. He decided to give her the sticks, and took a spoon from another location and used to turn on some kind of grill on the floor.

He put the cup of ramen in the grill and added the water he was going to drink inside. 'Weird.'

Slowly the food began to melt in the slow cook grill, and Kushina started to hunger for the food inside. "That's pretty good? What brand is it?" She really wanted to know. As far as she knew cup ramen didn't smell that appealing. "Can I get it from here?"

"Probably." Naruto stirred the food looking absently out the top _crack-window_ in thought. "That's where I got it from."

"Oh, right." She knew she sounded kind of stupid. Where else could he have gotten it from? It was _she_ who was the outsider after all. "Um, I think it's done."

"Heh, sure is." He pulled the food out with the spoon he held and then put it into the cup he had earlier. He carefully made sure not to drop a single one and handed it to Kushina, who pushed it back to him, albeit reluctantly.

"Aren't you going to eat?" She didn't like how he was so skinny. Kushina still had a lot of belly fat and baby fat on her cheeks. She could have done to lose a few pounds, or at least that was what her great aunt told her. Naruto, on the other hand, was the opposite, his cheeks looked so hollow, his body thin. "You probably need it more than me, I wouldn't want to eat all your food."

"…you think this is all my food?" he asked. He got up, and broke a piece of hardwood. Kushina looked in and noticed that it stored with hundreds of packets of rations. "Yeah, let's just say I have enough to feed me for a year, if I ever need to turn this place into my own Military Fort."

"Why?"

"My own reasons, red," he closed the hardwood seal, and looked up to her seriously. "I am not shittin' around. Don't tell anyone you saw this."

Kushin nodded her mane of messy red hair. It was a strange request but she didn't see any reason not to comply. "So, you have these little forts all over the village." She paused to think up more. "And you keep them around important locations for…pranks?"

"Something like that." He didn't go further. Instead he scratched his head. "God damn it! Another screw up!" Kushina had no idea who he was talking to and decided to just not say anything. "Well, that is the last of them." He looked back to her, sadly. "I am gonna to have to take you home. There is something I really need to do. Nothing personal, but…well, let's just say something did not come out right."

Kushina decided, for her sanity, not to ask what his make believe mission was and just held out her hand.

"Do you even know where I live?" Seeing his blank expression she sighed and wrote down an address.

The boy grinned. "Wow, no shit? You live here!" She nodded. Not understanding what was so special about her one bedroom apartment. It was a simple enough place. "Okay, just hold on. I only need one _switch_ for this one."

Slowly she wrapped her arms around his stomach and held in a breath as she was warped out of there. The girl tripped when they landed and hit her head on her bed. Groaning she got up to see Naruto holding out his hand to her, this time she pushed it away and stood up.

Looking around she noticed in astonishment that they had warped _directly_ into her room.

"How…how did you do that? You don't even know what my room looks like…" She trailed off, now seriously worried that she had just been led astray by some stalker. Was this boy keeping tabs on her? "Well?"

The boy scratched the back of his head. Pulled out some more leaves and smiled. "Kinda hard to believe but I used to live here, sort of." He looked at the place thoughtfully. "But it was never this clean when was around that's for sure."

Kushina looked at him oddly. He wasn't that old. What kind of person let a boy younger than her live in an apartment by himself? "How long ago was that?"

"Believe me, you wouldn't believe me if I told ya."

Slowly he walked towards the exit, played with a secret crack on the wall, and then opened the door.

"I'll see ya at school, if that bastard of a Jounin manages to catch me." He gave her a thumbs up, which she didn't respond too. It was just too uncool. "Wish me like, chubby."

'Chubby?' Immediately a tick formed on her forehead and she ran towards the door. The boy laughed shut the door tight and before she could open it, she found herself slipping and hitting the front of the door. 'What the hell?'

Getting up she noticed that there was a slip of paper on the floor, and picked it up to see Naruto's face with a peace sign, saying **Better luck next time**. Kushina crunched the paper with her hands and threw it into the fire. "I am going to _soo_ get that son of a bitch!" Slowly she walked to her shower, sighing as she felt cramps form on her stomach, and scenting the horrible smell in her hair. "But first I got to get that horrible stench off. Feels like I got fungus growing out of my scalp…"

…

"Where is he, where is the bastard, that asshole, that prick. I am gonna kick his ass when I see'em." The boy in front of Kushina would not stop. Then he got way from his musings and pointed to her. "Bitch, you better tell where you are hiding him, or so help me I am a gonna sick Kuro-chan at ya!"

Kushina had seen rude people in her life.

Big ones, small ones, short ones, fat ones. One thing they all had in common was that they annoyed her, and when she was annoyed she had this habit of trying to annoy the hell out of the person who annoyed her first. Forget peaceful resolution, if the guy was trying to pick a fight with her, then that is exactly what that person was going to get.

No exceptions.

"You get the mutt anywhere near me and I'll have a new fur coat." She pulled her kunai from her pocket and gestured to the beast. "Come here doggy-chan. I've got a present for you."

"Stay away from my dog!" The feral looking boy jumped onto her desk and crouched down to her. Kushina refused to budge, even when his horrid breath touched her nostrils. "You threaten my pal again, and I'll make you wish you never transferred here, newbie."

"Oh, big talk." Kushina noticed that the boy wasn't backed up by anybody. Either he didn't have any friends, or they just weren't here today. "You and what army? Flea bag!"

Normally Kushina wasn't this mean, but after the bullshit Uzumaki Naruto had put her through, she wasn't in the mood to just be pushed around by anyone else. If Naruto could stand up to the entire class, and solve his problems without having to get _too_ violent, she could too. Didn't Naruto also say to be more assertive?

Well, she was going to start being more assertive, starting with this one.

"I'll take you on, any time, any place." She smiled, closing her eyes. "Just name it!"

"Fine!" The boy's sharp teeth grit hard, there was fire in his eyes. "Today, outside, in the field. No witnesses. Just you and me. Come alone."

"Nice try, I am bringing in one person." She paused and looked at his doggy partner, who was wagging his tail. Honestly, it was such an adorable animal. 'Why did it have to be with such a horrible boy?' "You bring your puppy, I'll bring in one other person. This way it's fair."

"Hah, you don't know anyone in this class." He gestured to the class full of people who were ignoring the two. "Only that slimeball Naruto would _possibly_ come with you, and the teme is off skipping class."

"So what?" Kushina didn't like Naruto that much, but she didn't like the idea of people calling him a slimeball. Plus he was probably the only friend she had in the class, sort of. "That _slimeball_ is probably the best student in the class."

That got a growl from the dogboy.

"Best student? Who gives a shit. We're Ninja! I don't wanna be no best students. I wanna be the best Ninja around!" The boy sneered at her with his tiny nose. Once again Kushina was struck by how odd his appearance was. For a boy he had some distinct girlish features. "Give me a break, Baka-Kage."

"Take that back!" Kushina didn't like the idea of anyone making fun her, just for that one moment. So what if she wanted to be a Kage? What was wrong with that?

"Arrgghhh!" She got up and slammed her forehead onto the Inuzuka, who also rammed his forehead unto hers. Their eyes were filled with self-righteous anger. "I am going to be the next Hokage, watch me!"

"The day you become a Kage, is the day I become a vegetarian, and stop chasing cats," the boy answered back, leaning towards her, giving her a leer.

Slowly the boy's face looked thoughtful, which was weird, and he leaned against her further.

"How about you cut the crap?" he asked, trying to sound like a friend. "Just tell me where the _teme_ hides out. I went to the bastards house and found the place empty. The place hadn't been lived in for months."

'What makes you think I know where he hides out? Heck, what makes you think I would ever tell you, doggy boy.' "So what?" She backed away from the boy, who was the exact same size as her, and sat on her desk, arms crossed. "Uzumaki has got nothing to do with me. I am not his _mommy_, I don't keep track of where he goes."

The boy growled, slammed his fist on her desk, turned around, and hopped off. He made a thud as he hit the ground, and walked away from her.

"If you ever see the bastard, tell him I am hunting for him. If I ever see his face in class, I am going to beat his ass down. Inuzuka style."

That got a giggle from a dark haired girl who sat three seats ahead. Kushina noticed that it was the same girl she saw at the Uchiha compound. The doggy boy took a seat at the front and pulled out his bags.

"Crap! Kuro," the boy shouted. "Why didn't you remind me to bring my books? Ahhh!"

Kushina blanked out the moron from the rest of her musings and read the notes in the front of the class. So far the day was starting out okay. Most of the attention was focused on "_Where the hell Uzumaki Naruto was?"_ and Kushina was surprised to see an amazing amount of whispers about how the class was going to get him back when they next saw him.

Part of the girl was worried for his safety, but the larger part had to admit that he had it coming, especially after learning that the entire class had to sit out a detention. With the exception of all those who left the battle before it began, namely Namikaze Minato and co, along with that Uchiha girl who she spotted yesterday at the compound.

Without Naruto in class though, she felt like things were both kind of boring and lonely. None of the girls dared approach her for some reason, probably because of her association with Uzumaki Naruto, and none of the boys wanted anything to do with her, probably because of the comment she made about being the next female Hokage. It certainly didn't help that they called her Tomato when she thought she couldn't hear them.

The one good thing about class today was that the number of traps setup for her were low. Most of the boys seemed to be saving it for the blond haired trouble maker, and she even heard something about "Jumping him" when he got to school, whenever he did. Kushina made a note to warn the boy that he was going to be ganged up on if he ever took the front door.

But for some reason she had a feeling the boy wasn't the front door type.

That feeling was proved true when someone smashed through their window in the middle of class, eliciting shrieks of terror from girls who saw large pieces of glass get embedded on their wooden desk. Kushina cringed at the sight of one of Minato's friends running around holding his arm because of a small glass spike, and silently thanked the gods that it wasn't her

The body that broke through their window rolled on the floor, knocking three or four desks out, while making girls and boy run away screaming. The body was covered in dirty and blood. Kushina silently chided herself for screaming when she thought it was a dead body, and chided herself even further when the supposed dead body started to violently shake. The Chunin instructor was out since he had to get some marking stamps, thus the class had been left to finish their quiz on their own.

So the only ones that would be able to help out the small body were the students, who more or less knew nothing about medical jutsu.

"Is it dead?"

"Nah, it's moving."

"What the hell man! I almost died!"

"Troublesome!"

"Er, is it lunch yet?"

"Bark Bark!"

Kushina jumped down to where the body was and crouched next to it. As she got closer, she noticed something: the mop of spiked blond hair that only one other person in the class had.

"Naruto!" She turned him over, and saw that he was having a hard time breathing. Something was stuck in his throat. "Quick, someone can the Sensei!"

"I am on it!" Namikaze Minato bolted down the hall before she could say anything.

"Holy shit, someone really fucked him up?" The dogboy was crouched next to her too. Kushina wanted to punch him. "What the hell is that?"

"Looks like Senbon Needles." She didn't like the implications of this. "We should probably pull them out."

"Not a good idea." The Inuzuka ripped a piece of paper from nearby and crunched it into a ball. "Well, not without using something as a stopper. The teme might bleed to death otherwise."

Kushina looked at the boy carefully. Her eyes narrowed. "Why are you being so helpful?" She had to admit that his attitude was refreshing, better than the hesitant actions of her classmates, but this was just too suspicious. "You said you were going to kill him, why the change of heart?"

The boy looked around, and then leaned towards her, whispering in her ear. "I am not sure if you noticed but some of the guys here, don't like him." Kushina waited. "And they _really_ don't like you."

"What did I ever do to them?" she hissed. "I just said I want to be the next kage."

"Ora, ora, keep it down," the Inuzuka whispered back, slapping Kushina in the back of the head. "There is a lot going on in this academy that you do not know, Tomato-teme. Old grudges and feuds. Not everyone here are friends, and you better pray you don't get in the wrong side of those with power."

Kushina didn't get what the Inuzuka was talking about, but decided that now was not that time to worry about that. She had a _potential_ friend to save. "Okay, whatever, let's stop the bleeding." She pulled out the senbon from the boy's throat, and the Inuzuka was going to stop the flow. "Ready, get set…Go!"

Yet before the Inuzuka could do that, the blood flow stopped. Before their eyes the wound completely healed. Instantly, with no hesitation whatsoever. The two looked at each other startled, and then looked back at the class who didn't seem to notice. Kushina didn't know what to think and pulled out the needles one by one, and the same thing happened again and again.

It was almost like the wound was never there to start with.

Behind her the Inuzuka dog started to bark, and bark plenty. Then it whimpered and backed away to the back of the class. "That's not good." Kushina turned to the Inuzuka. "Kuro-chan isn't scared of anyone…what is going on?" The last part was said with a whisper.

Before Kushina could make reply, something grabbed her hand. Uzumaki Naruto leaned up and almost slammed his head on her forehead.

She backed away in time, and tripped on the Inuzuka behind her. "Hey, watch it!" The dog boy pushed her off and the chubby cheeked girl hit the floor with a thud.

"Damn you!" Kushina's dark blue eyes glared at the Inuzuka. Her teeth gritted. "What the hell is your problem?"

"What's yours? Is it so hard not to slam me onto the floor? Get your eyes checked, girl!" was the boy's smart reply. The boy turned to Uzumaki Naruto, who was pulling out pieces of metal from his flesh. His clothing he wore from yesterday looked totally destroyed. "Teme, I've been looking for you! We are going to fight!"

Naruto turned to the boy, and gave him a blank stare. Slowly his eyes narrowed, and he seemed to be concentrating on something. "Do I know you?" The Inuzuka boy howled and was about to lung. "Er, you look familiar, yes?"

"Teme, you sucker punched me in the face while I was talking to Kuro-chan," he said, shaking with anger. "The two of us were just minding our own business, hell we were not even pissed off at the extra work, and you just come along and break one of my teeth." The boy pulled out a fang from his pocket. "See." Kushina had to admit that the boy took good care of his teeth. It was pearly white. "Now I am gonna take one of yours as payback."

"A fair trade." Naruto got off the ground and then fell back down. "Ahh, I think I need a minute, hold on." He tried to stand again and fell. His knees looked so wobbly, like he had been running all this time. "Can ya give me another few seconds, just one more…ahh, right, got it."

He now stood up straight and walked towards the bigger Inuzuka, who looked at the Uzumaki oddly.

"Now tell me what ya want." He scratched his butt once. "Arrghh, poison Ivy! -I mean, you were lookin' for me, I heard from my neighbor. So tell me what you want?"

"I want to settle the score. Man to man." Kushina noticed the boy used the word _man_ a lot. He must had serious gender issues. "I challenged that bitch, Tomato, already. So one more round with you ain't gonna be a skin off my back."

"Seriously, a challenge?" Naruto looked at Kushina skeptically. "You actually accepted this?"

"Inzuka-san was annoying, it was the only way to get him to shut up." Her classmates started to chuckle. Apparently she wasn't the only one who thought the Inuzuka had social problems. "What do you say? I said you were my second, kind of. His is the dog. I think we have a shot against the dog."

The blond Uzumaki smiled. "Bring it!" He bounced up and down a made a few swings. "I am gonna show you young whippersnappers what's what!"

Kushina glowered at his humor. It seemed to be centered around his victims being younger than him, which was impossible since everyone here was more or less in the same age group, at least to her knowledge. Then again she had only been here for a few days, so perhaps her analysis was a bit off. For all she knew Naruto could be a repeat, but from the amount of surprise the others had for him she doubted it.

"Right!" The Inuzuka boy clenched his fist and pointed it to him. "Then tonight I am gonna beat your ass down!"

"Try it," Naruto answered with his own savage grin. "I'l turn ya to kibble's n bits."

"No way," barked the dogboy. "Teme!"

"Yes way," Naruto answered, grinning. "Dogshit!"

As this was going on, Kushina noticed one important thing. Naruto was in a very, very good mood. Something must have happened after she left because he no longer held that horrible contempt and that desire to escape his class. Whatever he was supposed to do yesterday, he had done it, and done it right. She hoped that he would be this jolly, and less violent.

Even if he had to break through a window to get into this mood.

Then she looked out the window and shivered. Standing outside was that same Uchiha that Naruto had pranked the day before. He was covered in feathers, droppings, glue, crayons, spray paint, paste, the works. He didn't look injured at all, but the fury in his face was pure picturesque, and the trembling rage was beyond priceless.

The man looked at the laughing Naruto, then looked at her with some confusion, and turned away to clean up.

Probably.

"Naruto, what the hell was that?" Kushina pointed to the walking-away-Uchiha. "What the hell did you do to him?"

Naruto laughed, and shook off glass from his destroyed shirt. "The baka got me outside the village while he was on patrol. He tried to get me to some hospital, but I told him no way, and he got this smart idea to incapacitate me with sleepingsSenbon." Naruto pulled out one from his bum. "So I lead him through a set of traps around the village. -Oi, you should have seen the look on his face when he walked in front of the Military Base covered in orange paint."

"Why orange?" the dogboy asked.

"Will of Fire, baka!" Naruto folded his arms shook his head. "Kids today, no respect for the old ways. He was like a giant beacon of flaming orange light in these dark rainy days."

Kushina had to admit it had been raining a lot. "Still, that doesn't explain what you were doing outside of the villag-"

"Can we not talk about this here?" Naruto interrupted cheerfully. "I mean, I think you guys were doing a test weren't you?"

"I wasn't," said a drowsy voice, who hadn't even gotten off his chair when Naruto almost died. "But I wouldn't mind if everyone got back and went on with it." He yawned. "You guys are making a lot of noise."

"Everyone makes a lot of noise to you," a girl who looked a lot like the voice said. "And if I ever hear you say troublesome one more time, I am going to tell auntie."

"Troublesome."

"Why you little-!"

"Enough of this!" Someone slammed a fist on the desk. Kushina turned around. 'Oh, shit.' "Everyone get back in your seats, get back in your chairs, and get back to writing the test. Sensei left me in charge and he has trusted you all, please do not let his trust be in vain."

"Oi, what's shoved up his ass?" Naruto asked Kushina, as they walked towards the back of the class. "You know him?"

Kushina looked at Naruto strangely. "Are you retarded? Of course I know him! Everyone knows him!" Kushina couldn't believe this. There was no possible way that Uzumaki Naruto could not know the boy who just told everyone to sit down.

"Hard to say who he is," Naruto admitted."Sure I know what he is, what Clan I mean, but who is difficult, no?"

"Weren't you here the first day of class?"

"I slept through the introductions, anything important?"

Kushina sighed and pulled out a seat for Naruto sit on. "Here, take your seat." Kushina frowned. "What, why are you making that expression?"

"Huh, I thought I sit there." He pointed to a seat a desk away. "Was I promoted today? I am a really worthy to sit next to your Lordship, the future first female Hokage, the Yondaime Uzumaki Kushina?"

"Shut up before I break your face." She pushed him into his seat and pulled out a sheet of test paper. "Here, I got a spare. For some reason the teacher didn't collect this extra. See if you can answer it, the test ends in 20 minutes."

Naruto picked up the paper, and looked at it.

"What was the name of the Shodaime's opponent in the valley of the end…wow, this is _real_ hard." He turned to her. "I was plowed through a window just for this?"

"Just finish the test!" she shouted. "Some of us have a hard time doing this you know." Internally she was jealous at how easy Naruto found the test.

"Tomato-san, no talking while the test is in session." The one in the charge of the class, the boy Kushina was _somewhat_ afraid of glowered at the two with his pupilless eyes. "There _will_ be consequences if you do otherwise."

"Sure thing, Hyuga-san," Naruto answered. He picked up his test. "I'll be sure to answer every question on my own. Shouldn't take too long. A, A, B, A, C,B, D, and D. Yeah, it shouldn't take _too_ long at all."

Kushina was furiously scribbling down the answers. Sure she didn't agree with Naruto was doing, but a perfect score was a perfect score.

…

Namikaze Minato came in with their instructor, who yelled at Naruto for breaking the window, then proceeded to collect the tests. He looked impressed at the class's grades, but didn't say much more on the subject. Instead he told everyone to settle down, and to ignore the birds coming in from the cracked window. He had a very important announcement to make, one that would affect their hidden village immensely.

"Class, yesterday something tragic happened." He paused to let the words sink it. No one talked, one person yawned. "At 13:00 one of the Hokage's students, Orochimaru, disappeared."

That got a gasp from everyone, including the boy he woke up. Kushina herself gasped because everyone else was doing it, but in reality she didn't see what the big deal was. People disappeared all the time in the Ninja World especially when there was a war going on, what made this event so special?

"Perhaps a few of you better know Orochimaru for his exploits in exhibition matches or may have read of his research?" There were blank stares from the majority of the class from the research part, well aside from Minato. "Well, in any case. He is a powerful Shinobi, one of the most powerful in this village right now, and a key player in our forces."

"Er, sensei, can we get to the point." The Uchiha girl had her hand raised. "I have to get home soon, my mother expects me to start Tea Class immediately."

"You and your damn Tea Class can wait, Mikoto." The man grit his teeth then calmed down. "Sorry, I shouldn't have done that." He paused. "Anyway, what makes this case so horrific is that this is said to be an inside job."

He let those words sink in. Kushina wondered why they were telling her this. Seemed like something that should be kept secret. "The reason I make this announcement is that the kidnapper, or culprit, wrote down what he did all across key locations in the village. He made notes of his crime all over the Clan houses."

There were shocks and gasps from more people. The most enthusiastic gasp coming from Naruto. "How dare he! What kind of monster does such a thing!" Kushina thought that the was being a bit too over dramatic. "Let's find that fucker and kill him!"

"Yeah, kill him!" Dogboy jumped onto his desk.

"Eat him!" a fat boy answered.

"No, not Orochimaru-sama! How could they?" A feminine looking blond boy cried. He stood up, holding his arms around his chest. "He was my idol."

"Seriously?" a lazy voice asked.

"No, not really." The femboy sat back on his desk. "But it sounded like the right thing to say."

The sensei pointed a shaking finger to Dogboy. "Tsume, get down off your table, and take a seat." He turned to the three stooges. "Shut up, you three, or I'll send you to detention, again!" Their teacher was not amused. "Well, the main reason for this announcement is that the culprit is said to be an insider. A spy, possibly."

More gasps. "No, say it isn't so, sensei!" Naruto shouted again. " A spy? Here, in Konoha? Damn, I never woulda' thought."

The man looked at Naruto stupidly, then shook his head and looked the sage. "I know, I know," the man said. "I know it is hard to believe, but that is what happened. The culprit did not defeat Orochimaru-sama with strength, no, it is said his food was poisoned. During his trip to a ramen stand…I probably shouldn't be telling you the series of events, it's rather embarrassing, ask your parents if you have time."

"I don't have parents sensei," Naruto answered, making some fake tears, much to Kushina's annoyance. "So I'll never get the story of his demise, woe is me!"

"Shut up! Uzumaki! I don't have time for your jokes." Kushina hated that they shared the same name. She almost felt like _she_ was getting in trouble. "What I want to tell you all is to be on the lookout for this."The teacher pulled out picture of a tall man wearing in a black cloak and an orange mask. "If any one you have any information about this man, please send word too…"

And so the day ended with the class being dismissed. Since everyone was so surprised by the disappearance of the Hokage's students, they didn't try and attack Naruto as they said they would. The Hyuga boy that Naruto angered glared at the orphan furiously as they walked out of the class, and Kushina was almost balled over by the running Uchiha Mikoto, but over all things could have been worse.

Then, on her way home, she remembered something.

"Oh crap!" She turned around and ran down the rainy streets back to school. 'I forgot about my match with Dogboy.' "Noo! It has already been half an hour."

…

Author's Notes: As you can tell I had to self-beta this chapter. Hope you can forgive me for a few errors here and there. Sorry for taking two weeks to update. I answered every last one of your reviews, all 200 of them. I think I have 9 left. Don't think I forgot you guys, I am just waiting for the 100 pm rule to die down. Anyway here it is. The second chapter. As I said before updates will probably occur weekly now that I have a story planed out. I plan to write this for one year. So we are looking at something looking a 400,000 word fic. I know, huge isn't it? Well, here is hoping this fic doesn't die out. So onto the story. If you are wondering what period Naruto comes from, well, some of you guys in the PM guessed right. Some of you even predicted that that this is really Yami Naruto. I'll tell you right now that this isn't Yami Naruto. If you are wondering why I haven't added a lot of Minato in this chapter it is because I have to save him for other chapters. He is so overused that you don't even feel that amazed when he shows up. There are so many interesting characters in this period and I am going to give each of them an arch to develop them. School Days is going to be the arch that is focused on this fic, for now, but trust me when I say that I am going to develop the plot slowly. If I go too fast I will ruin the story and I know you guys will not like that.

Anyway, thanks for your reviews! I'll reply to each and every one of them, as you already know, so don't be afraid to give me a click.

Sincerely,

Avg. Naruto


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